


Where The Demons Hide

by lapsus_calami



Series: No One Chooses This Life [9]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aldridge Mansion-yes it's a ghostbusters reference, Gen, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, also i need to stop naming my OCs with names that start with t, everyone is an asshole and someone will die, first terry and now trevor, ghost hunt - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:40:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8639068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/pseuds/lapsus_calami
Summary: While still dealing with fallout from the demon hunt in Georgia, a complex ghost hunt at a haunted mansion in Boston and a new hunter who seems vaguely familiar stirs already volatile circumstances between Stiles and the Winchesters into something that will have a lasting impact.





	1. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back with the first chapter of part nine! Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating. To all who are not, I wish you a swell day!

**Where The Demons Hide**

Stiles crept down the hallway one small step at a time. Beneath his weight the floorboards creaked ominously heightening the creep factor by about three hundred percent. In spite of all the dark and scary houses Stiles had been in since his foray into the woods that fateful night they still managed to unnerve him. Stiles flattened his back to the wall as he edged around a turn keeping his ears pricked for the smallest sound beyond his own footsteps. The lights flickered again and he glanced at the closest sconce with an look of irritation. Of course that was when the electricity cut out entirely leaving Stiles cloaked in darkness while he sighed heavily and settled more firmly against the wall. He closed his eyes trying to remember the lay out of the building from the first time he’d walked through with Dean when they'd arrived yesterday.

It had only been a quick visit, but if he remembered correctly this hallway continued on straight for several yards before forking off in three directions. The left went down to what used to be servant quarters, the right to the master suites, straight ahead awaited the guest bedrooms, and at the end of the hallway was a narrow stairwell that went down to the kitchen. Stiles trailed his hand along the wall heading for the servant's stairwell and pausing when he thought he heard footsteps.

After a few moments of silence he resumed moving, taking careful steps and making sure to stick close to the wall and distribute his weight from his heel to the ball of his foot evenly. He slipped down the hallway pausing once more when he heard a particularly loud creak off to his right. Back to the wall, he edged around the corner adjusting his hold on the sawed-off shotgun Dean had handed him earlier despite Stiles’ expression of distaste. For his part Stiles wasn’t sure why carrying around a shotgun full of rocksalt shells was any more effective than his idea of carrying around a pouch of salt to throw at the ghosts, but both Winchesters had given him similar looks of disbelief when he’d suggested it. He hated to admit they were right, but Stiles doubted the footsteps in the master suite were caused by a spirit and rocksalt would probably be more effective against a live person than loose salt. Although, Stiles still maintained throwing a handful in someone’s eyes would be at least partially successful at incapacitation and provide him ample time to escape.

Stiles inched into the master bedroom carefully easing the door open fully and straining his eyes to pick out shapes in the near complete darkness. The curtains in the room were fully drawn shut and made of heavy enough material that little light filtered in from outside. Hesitant to use his spark incase there really was someone in the room, Stiles moved blindly forward keeping his back to the closest wall he knew contained no closet and held his breath as he listened.

Nothing but silence greeted him and after a moment he moved forward again picking out the vague shapes of the bed, dresser, and armoire as he headed for the adjoining bathroom. The hair on the back of his neck raised as soon as he crossed the threshold. Meaning to make a hasty retreat he took two steps backwards gasping when he collided solidly with someone’s chest. He jerked forward, turning around quickly and a flashlight clicked on directly in his face blinding him with a sudden flood of light. Stiles raised a hand to try and block what he could of the light and found himself being forced back as the person rushed towards him.

Stiles brought the shotgun up in defense, unintentionally squeezing the trigger when his arm was wrenched to the side and his elbow cracked painfully of the vanity as he was tackled to the floor. The report was near deafening in the bathroom and Stiles noted distantly the sound of the mirror shattering but most of his attention was focused on the heavy weight of the man on top of him. The gun was torn from his grip, thrown out of Stiles’ reach into the bathtub with a clatter as the man immediately pinned Stiles to the ground, tucked close in-between his legs in a parody of intimacy and hands pressing painfully hard on his shoulders. Stiles felt the man pull back, likely to stand up, and quickly locked his legs around the man’s waist letting himself be drawn up onto his shoulders before releasing his hold and pressing down on the man’s thighs while pulling the man’s ankles towards him. Clearly not expecting such a retaliation the man easily fell backwards, knocked completely off balance by what was a relatively amateur move.

Stiles wasn’t taking the moment of surprise for granted though, rolling quickly to this feet as soon as the man hit the floor and leaping for the door. He was halfway across to the bed intent on getting to a more defendable position where he could actually see when the man slammed into him again. Shoved forward, he collided painfully with the dresser, crying out when the man wound his fingers in Stiles’ hair and slammed his head solidly against the hard wood before dragging him backwards. Ears still ringing Stiles stomped blindly at the man’s foot hearing a sharp inhale in response when he hit his mark. He twisted free while the man was distracted, wincing when the man’s grip pulled some of his hair out.

He skipped a few steps back to put some distance between them relieved when he heard Dean yell his name followed by thundering footsteps on the stairs. The man lunged forward and Stiles kicked out landing a solid hit to what was probably the man’s solar plexus before following it up with a hard punch to the man’s face that left his hand tingling. He tried to move back again aware that the man’s larger size gave him a distinct advantage over Stiles as long as he remained too close, but the man’s style of fighting seemed to be a variation of straight out mauling and the few hits Stiles managed to land did little to deter him.

Stiles grimaced as he was thrown bodily to the floor, shoulder aching from the impact. He stayed on his back kicking out with his feet to keep the man from pinning him completely. Planting one foot solidly on the man’s leg Stiles shoved him away while using the motion to swing himself back to his feet. The man rushed forward again, crowding Stiles into a corner and taking advantage of the limited space to maneuver and quickly pinning Stiles to the wall with one arm pulled behind his back.

This time when Stiles tried to twist free the man just adjusted his hold, one arm locked tight over Stiles throat and drawing upwards until Stiles was forced to stand on his tiptoes just to relieve enough pressure to breathe. The man jerked them both around placing Stiles as a shield between himself and the Winchesters as the other hunters finally burst into the room with thundering steps and a blinding flashlight that rivaled the earlier one lost somewhere in the bathroom.

“Hey,” Dean barked shotgun held up and an expression on his face that clearly said he’d be shooting if Stiles wasn’t in the direct line of fire. “Let him go!”

“Hey, now,” the man behind him rumbled, voice deep and evoking a sudden chill that made Stiles feel vaguely nauseous though he wasn’t sure why, “let’s all calm down a bit, all right?”

It was a bit hypocritical, Stiles thought, not to mention downright rude to ask people to calm down when one of them was being actively strangled. Stiles kicked his feet against the floor a bit trying to get a little more leverage to stand taller. Every time he gained a little though the man simply tightened his hold and drew Stiles up higher until his toes were barely grazing the floor. 

“Let the boy go,” John said moving a couple steps forward and keeping both his flashlight and handgun trained on them. “Then we’ll see about calming down.”

The man hauled Stiles back a few steps putting even more pressure on his throat. Stiles scrabbled at the man’s sleeve trying to get even the slightest relief as he began to feel a little lightheaded.

“Look,” the man said. “I think there’s been a slight misunderstanding. I don’t know why you three are here but this house ain’t safe.”

“No kidding,” Dean snapped.

“Let him go,” John repeated. “Then we can talk civilly.”

“How’s about you two lower your guns there first?” the man asked. “I don’t relish the idea of getting shot over a misunderstanding.”

The moment of consideration John took was a little too long in Stiles opinion, but after a few seconds John lowered his gun and Dean followed suit looking vaguely apprehensive. The man let up the slightest bit on Stiles' throat, enough that he could pull in a cheap imitation of a full breath. After another second the man eased him down so he could stand on his tiptoes still pulling in gulps of air that burned in his oxygen starved lungs.

“Good. Now, you mind telling me what you three are doing here? I thought these two might be jonsing for a good time in a haunted mansion like a bunch of idiotic hooligans,” the man said giving Stiles a shake and nodding at Dean, “but you seem a tad too old for that sort of fun.”

“Haunted mansion?” John repeated flatly pausing for a second then saying, “That’s why we’re here actually.”

The man huffed something that may have been a laugh, arm tightening briefly before loosening again. “No shit?” he said. “You three are hunters?”

“Yeah,” John replied shortly, nowhere near as amused as the man sounded. “Now let the boy go.”

“Oh, right,” the man said. “Right. Sorry, ‘bout that.”

Abruptly the pressure released and Stiles stumbled forward with a cough nearly overbalancing and falling on his face. Dean moved towards him, grasping his arm as Stiles rubbed at his throat and turned to glare at the man reproachfully getting his first full look at the man who’d nearly strangled him. He was tall, probably a few inches taller than John even, and broad across the chest with thick arms. Neatly trimmed beard on a defined square jaw with a frankly intimidating pair of hazel-grey eyes. Stiles pegged him at mid to late thirties, and, overall, he was pretty daunting even if he was trying to look nice.

“The name’s Trevor,” the man said offering Stiles a half-hearted apologetic smile that didn’t look nearly sincere. “Piece of advice, don’t go around randomly attacking people.”

Stiles gaped, one hand still gently rubbing at his throat. “You attacked me,” he rasped and Trevor just shrugged neatly brushing Stiles’ response away as he turned to John.

“So you three here about the ghost then?”

“What else would we be here for?” John asked still sounding skeptical.

Trevor held his hands up in surrender grinning inanely. “Was just asking. Been here a week or so myself. Haven’t been able to crack it. Hey, maybe we should combine resources?” he suggested glancing between John, Dean, and Stiles. “Been awhile since I worked in a team.”

“You just tried to strangle me,” Stiles said cutting his gaze from Trevor to John hoping the other man would tell Trevor where exactly he could shove it. John, the bastard, actually looked like he was considering it. Stiles swallowed wincing against the soreness building in his throat and sense of dread crawling over him. Unobtrusively he shifted closer to Dean half hiding behind the hunter and ignoring the puzzled look Dean shot him.

“I suppose,” John said sounding guarded but considering, “it might be useful to have another person working on this with us.”

“Okay,” Trevor said clapping his hands together. “Let’s reconvene somewhere less, uh, creepy, shall we? I’m going to grab my flashlight. Hopefully it’s not broken from where you threw it on the ground.”

“Again,” Stiles said not even bothering to hide his bitterness as Trevor headed into the bathroom. “You were trying to strangle _me_.”

“You okay?” Dean asked half turned so his back was to John and Trevor. He looked concerned from what Stiles could make out in the shadows, brows drawn together and corners of his mouth pulled tight. 

Stiles hesitated before shrugging, brushing off the remaining tendrils of _wrong_ leeching through him. “I’m fine. Aside from almost having my neck crushed, I mean.”

If possible Dean’s eyebrows knit even closer together as he set his sawed off to the side before pulling a flashlight from his pocket and clicking it on. Stiles frowned, squinting at the light pointed at his face and batted Dean’s hand away when the hunter reached for him.

“Stop it,” Dean said resignedly tilting Stiles’ chin up and beginning to prod at his throat gently. “Is your neck sore?”

“Our new friend Trevor just held me off the floor by my neck,” Stiles replied noting the persistent rasp to his voice and the dull flare of pain when he swallowed. “Some soreness is to be expected I think.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dean chastised. “You know as well as I do that strangulation can be dangerous. You could have a hyoid fracture.”

Stiles shook his head and pushed Dean’s hands away again. Dean had been overly concerned with Stiles' health since he'd passed out, randomly as far as anyone else knew, at Bobby's last week. It was starting to grate on Stiles' nerves something awful. “My hyoid is not fractured,” he said with a sigh.

The worried look didn't fade completely, but Dean eventually rolled his eyes saying, “We’ll get you some ice in the car. Keep an eye on the swelling.”

“I think this is yours,” Trevor said interrupting cheerfully and holding Stiles’ sawed off shotgun out for him to take. He ignored Dean’s side-eye glare of irritation only giving the shotgun a slight shake when Stiles failed to reach out and take it.

Stiles swallowed again, hesitating a long moment before accepting the firearm back and gingerly wrapping his fingers around the stock. It was heavy in his hand, his arm falling down a little as Trevor let go and the full weight of the gun was pulled by gravity. Trevor grinned at him seemingly unaware of how the action served to only put Stiles more on edge rather than reassure him.

“Try and keep ahold of that now, kid,” Trevor said with a wink. “Will do you more good in your hands than a bathtub.”

* * *

In the light of day the Aldridge Mansion was far from intimidating. In actuality it looked downright welcoming and not at all like it had been out of business for the last few decades. Stiles supposed it had something to do with the fact that a groundskeeper was still paid to come around frequently and keep the outside neat even if no one dared to step foot across the threshold. Aside from the two dead teenagers and the subsequent investigators Stiles and the others had been some of the few people inside the building for the last twenty-eight years.

Absurd, really, that no one had bothered to just tear the damn thing down yet. Stiles supposed that had something to do with the mansion’s historic significance. And, sure, it would be a shame to lose such an example of exquisite architecture but if there was no house then there wouldn’t be any dead people either. It was a suitable compromise in his opinion.

Then again, whether or not the Aldridge Mansion was actually haunted was a hotly debated subject, and Stiles knew firsthand how obstinately stubborn people could be having been, on many occasions, the ultimate of stubborn bastards. There were some hardcore groups protecting this historic piece of shit from being torn down. Unfortunately the newest group taking up its cause hadn’t worked half as hard to keep people out of it as the previous ones had.

As soon as the teenagers’ deaths had hit the news one of Bobby’s many alerts had been pinged and Stiles and the Winchesters were back in the familiar state of Massachusetts after yet another ghost. Of course, because Stiles had the luck of someone who’d broken at least two or three hundred mirrors in a past life, the ghost of Aldridge Mansion had proven quite difficult to pin down for a salt and burn. Probably due to the fact that no less than twelve people had died in the house and the remains for five of them were straight up missing.

Hence the benefit of another hunter to the mix. An extra pair of eyes to research, an extra pair of hands to dig, and an extra body to be bait. Not to mention that at thirty-six and coming from a hunting family Trevor had more experience than Dean and Stiles combined.

“So, how do you want to do this, Johnny?” Trevor asked ignoring once again John’s bristling at the diminutive of his name. Trevor cast a glance between John, Dean, and Stiles. “We should probably go in pairs,” he said settling his gaze on Stiles in a way that made him distinctly uncomfortable.

“Dean, you go with Stiles,” John instructed before Trevor could suggest anything more himself. “We’ll take the house, you two canvas the grounds. See if you find anything unusual. Keep an eye out for anything that might hint to unmarked graves. Some of the missing remains might be on the property.”

Dean nodded curtly, saying, “Yes, sir,” even as he clapped Stiles on the shoulder and all but forcibly guided him away from Trevor and John.

Dean had been doing that ever since Trevor showed up actually. Acting every bit the perfect little soldier. Always prompt answers and immediate obedience to anything John ordered. It wasn’t much different from the usual, but the thin layer of challenge Dean would give John when they were alone was gone. It always disappeared when around other hunters; Stiles had noticed it the first time with Terry although it hadn’t been as noticeable probably due to the fact that both Stiles and Bobby were also there. Now, though, was an extreme. All traces of familial connection gone and replaced with something that, quite frankly, reminded Stiles of the military.

He glanced over his shoulder as Dean led him away, giving Trevor one last surveying look and narrowing his eyes at the smirk the older hunter returned. Dean tugged his arm again and Stiles’ feet got tangled up together as he stumbled over a sudden dip in the lawn.

“Yo, Stiles, pay attention,” Dean said tightening his grip on Stiles’ arm to keep him from falling. “Get your head in the game.”

“Sorry,” Stiles muttered.

Dean huffed and let go of Stiles, setting a slow and steady pace as he started their circuit of the grounds. Stiles followed after him trying to mimic his motions and look for anything out of place along the lawn, but he found hi gaze constantly pulled back to the small figures of Trevor and John working their way around the outside of the mansion. While Dean seemed pretty focused on their task at hand Stiles was still trying to puzzle out why Trevor rankled his nerves so much. It was distracting enough that Stiles consistently kept running into Dean’s back whenever the hunter halted abruptly to inspect something with a closer look.

After the third time Stiles collided with the hunter Dean sighed and grabbed Stiles’ arm to roughly yank him around so his back was to the mansion. “Okay, spill. What’s up?” he asked keeping his hand on Stiles’ arm and giving Stiles his undivided attention.

“Trevor,” Stiles started noting the flex in Dean’s hand and the way his eyes tightened at the other hunter’s name. The back of Stiles’ neck prickled, almost like an itch urging him to turn around, to keep Trevor in his sights. “He doesn’t…I dunno, unnerve you? Even just a little?”

Dean sighed again, dropping his hand from Stiles’ arm and shaking his head. “No,” he answered with a shrug. “Not really. Look, working with other hunters can be uncomfortable. It can keep you on high alert, but Trevor seems friendly.”

“There’s something off about him,” Stiles said chewing at his lower lip and fidgeting as the itchiness built under his skin. “I just can’t put my finger on it.”

Dean huffed beginning to move across the grounds again. “Maybe you’re just overly suspicious because of past experiences.”

“Can you blame me?” Stiles asked moving to trail after him and casting furtive glances towards the mansion as they moved through a grove of trees. After a few moments John and Trevor disappeared around the corner of the mansion to go along the outer north wall and the muted sense of danger Stiles had been feeling faded as well.

Dean hummed in agreement crouching to swipe some leaves from the base of a tree before moving onto the next. Stiles moved after him paying little attention to the physical world around him and focusing instead on the low hum of energy. The mansion held its own unique vibration, one that resonated on a completely separate level from the rest of the world. This far out it was muted but still leeched into the grounds like a watermark leaving the equivalent of a faint aftertaste in his veins.

“Trevor just gives me a…” Stiles trailed off, unease crawling up his spine and settling over him with a chill.

Dean kept moving forward, not even looking back as he asked, “Gives you what?”

“A bad feeling,” Stiles finished staring down at the ground beneath his feet. Patchy grass struggling to survive in dry, hard packed dirt between a cluster of trees. He shivered as the sensation of cold fingers caressed along his back, slipping over his skin with the faintest of hints and leaving goose bumps in their wake. Now that he was looking closer he could see he was standing in the middle of a slight depression in the dirt.

“Dean,” he called drawing the hunter’s attention back to him from across the grove. He crouched brushing one hand through the dirt and leaves on the ground before glancing up to meet Dean’s gaze. “Found one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and your endless patience. You're all awesome. 
> 
> I anticipate this part to have between five and seven chapters. Chapter two should be up by **December 10th**. I'm giving myself some extra time because I'm reaching the end of the semester where everything really starts to suck. Yay for December. 
> 
> As always you can find me on [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While still dealing with fallout from the demon hunt in Georgia, a complex ghost hunt at a haunted mansion in Boston and a new hunter who seems vaguely familiar stirs already volatile circumstances between Stiles and the Winchesters into something that will have a lasting impact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally I return! Thank god for the end of the semester and traditional school breaks.
> 
> Although, trying to edit when you haven't slept in twenty-four hours is basically a lost cause so I'll post this now and read through it again later otherwise it wouldn't be up until Saturday probably.

**Where The Demons Hide**

All told there were three unmarked graves throughout the grove of trees. Together Stiles and Dean unearthed the remains before carefully transferring each set to canvas bags Dean had retrieved from the Impala. There was something inherently unsettling about packing a person’s bones into a sack like he’d once packed canned food in bags at the grocery store, but Stiles methodically pulled every last one from their unfortunate resting place.

Forty-eight hours and one bribed anthropologist later they had confirmed identities for the three servants who’d been unceremoniously buried on the mansion grounds and Stiles was once again watching bodies burn. They weren’t in a forest this time at least, but somehow Stiles found the fact that they were torching bones in the equivalent of metal garbage cans even more unsettling. Or maybe it was less the garbage cans and more the way flickering firelight cast Trevor’s features in sharp relief and glinted off his eyes every time he glanced over at Stiles.

Yeah, that was probably it.

Fucking Trevor who still made Stiles’ skin crawl just from his mere presence. Trevor who, while neither John nor Dean seemed to particularly like the man, only seemed to unsettle Stiles. John treated the man with thinly veiled distain that made Stiles seriously wonder why he hadn’t sent the man packing yet, and Dean seemed to barely tolerate Trevor though for an entirely different reason than Stiles. Stiles wasn’t sure what that reason _was_ , but it certainly wasn’t fear.

Not that Stiles was afraid of Trevor.

Because he wasn’t.

Even if the exaggerated startle response he exhibited every time Trevor snuck up on him implied otherwise.

“Whoa there, kiddo,” Trevor said smiling gregariously at Stiles and digging his fingers into the muscles of Stiles’ shoulder even as he flinched and tried to move out from under Trevor’s hand. “Why so jumpy?”

“How many times do I have to remind you that our first meeting involved you threatening bodily harm?” Stiles groused not so subtly moving several feet away.

Trevor frowned at Stiles’ answer, something like recognition flickering through his eyes setting a new wave of unease flowing through Stiles.

“You’re too sensitive,” Trevor said after a moment. “What’s a little strangulation between friends?”

Stiles glanced quickly at Dean before looking back at Trevor, squinting slightly in disbelief. “There is something deeply wrong with you,” he said.

Trevor laughed clearly taking it as a joke. He fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, plucking one out and shielding the small flame from his lighter from the slight wind to light it. He took a long drag and let out a satisfied sigh before raising an eyebrow at Dean, John, and Stiles. “Want one?” he asked shaking the pack a little and holding it out to Dean.

“Don’t smoke,” Dean said gruffly slipping his hands into his pockets. Trevor shrugged and shifted so the pack was hovering in front of Stiles now.

“How about you, kid?”

Stiles scowled. “Those things will kill you,” he said. “And stop calling me kid.”

“Pretty sure my usual playmates will get me before these do,” Trevor said gesturing with his cigarette and tapping it lightly to knock off the loose ash. “So what’s the plan now, Johnny? We need to see if one of these were the spirit?”

“It’s late,” John said as the flames started to die down a bit. “We’ll go through the mansion tomorrow and give it a once over.”

* * *

Stiles carefully eased the EMF reader back and forth across the hall as he made his was down toward the master suites taking careful measured steps and listening to the floorboards creak beneath his weight. The EMF remained stubbornly quiet as he moved into the same bedroom Trevor had tried to strangle him in several days ago. In the daytime it was far less creepy. Actually it was kind of nice if a little dusty. The sunlight streaming in through the windows played over the carpet, dust swirling through the beams stretching across the room. Coats of dust covered the dressers and bookshelves and bedposts. The floor too was blanketed with dust. Stiles was easily able to track where he and Trevor had disturbed the otherwise untouched room in the tracks through the dust. Frantic footsteps, a swipe across the top of the dresser where Trevor had shoved him. The evidence of the motions that had taken place a few days prior seemed completely at odd with the silence permeating the mansion now. 

The whole house felt quiet, actually, hauntingly so. It wasn't the kind of quiet that hinted towards peacefulness or repose. Rather it was the quiet before the storm. The quiet that hinted towards a deeper discontent beneath the surface. The quiet that encompassed cemetery. 

The kind of quiet that set Stiles' hairs on end and crept through his mind like a shadow of a threat. Even without the EMF to tell him Stiles knew the hunt was far from finished.  

Easing the door to the bathroom open Stiles gave it a good wave over with the EMF reader. It remained silent still and Stiles scrubbed his free hand over his face as he made his way from the bathroom, digging his fingers hard in his eyes to try and rub out some of his exhaustion. He kicked the door open from where it had fallen closed, apparently it was just lopsided enough to not remain open, and jerked back in shock when he found Trevor on the other side.

“Fuck,” Stiles bit out grimacing at the sharp pain radiating out from where his hip had hit the counter.

“Did I scare you?” Trevor asked with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Stiles snapped trying to will his pounding heart back down to a reasonable rate. He swallowed roughly when Trevor just shrugged and continued to stand in the doorway. “Want to let me past there, big guy?” he said working hard to keep an even tone infused with as much bitter sarcasm as possible. “If you haven’t noticed your unreasonably broad shoulders are kinda blocking the door.”

Something cruel flickered in Trevor’s eyes but he obligingly stepped to the side giving a wide sweep with his arm. Stiles edged past him walking determinedly for the door and ignoring the niggling sense of peril crawling up his back at having Trevor behind him. After a few moments he realized Trevor was following him, trailing behind Stiles as he headed for the next rooms down the hall.

It was hard to differentiate between the discomfort that came from the house and the discomfort caused by Trevor's mere presence. The two of them mixed together so seamlessly Stiles couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. It confused him, left him feeling strung out and wired all at the same time. Stiles didn't think he'd slept well for even an hour since Trevor held him two inches off the floor by his neck. The few hours of sleep he was managing to grab each night were filled with dark basements and a muddied sense of terror that left him shaking and nauseous when he inevitably woke.

Decisively ignoring the man at his back Stiles twisted the knob of the room he had mentally labeled The Creepy Ass Playroom the first time he’d entered it. Once upon a time it may have been pleasant or even sweet, the walls a faint pink and the two large windows framed with gauzy curtains that had probably been white at one point but were now an off white almost yellow hue. There was a small table with small chairs arranged carefully in front of the right window, draped with a lace table cloth and set with a tea pot and cups. Spaced along the right wall were several toy chests and an armoire centered between them.

What made it creep, though, was the left wall. The whole left wall was covered with shelves loaded with creepy doll after creepy doll all arranged to stare with blank, dead eyes at whoever walked in the door. Some were standing, some were sitting, and a few had toppled to their deaths, sprawled across the floor in a way that made them seem utterly abandoned. 

Two steps into the room with Trevor still shadowing him the EMF went off, lights blinking across the top and screeching to high heaven.

Stiles sighed switching the reader off and kneading at his temples in deference to the headache he could feel building already. Correction, he’d already had a headache. Now it was just getting worse.

“That’s a bummer,” Trevor said behind him sounding like he really thought it was anything but that.

Stiles closed his eyes flattening his palm over his face before rubbing it aggressively over his forehead. He pulled his phone out swiping quickly through his contacts and tapping John’s name. The hunter picked up on the second ring with a gruff, “ _Yeah_?”

“It’s a no go on the bones, John,” Stiles said wearily. “Something’s still here.”

* * *

“Well, we have narrowed it down from when we first got here,” Dean said from the table shuffling through some papers.

Stiles snorted chewing on his pen as he stared at the wall. “We’re still missing two sets of remains,” he said. He had the pictures, or in some cases sketched images, of all twelve house victims pinned to the wall above the second bed. Below each of them he’d detailed everything they knew about them. All but two of them were crossed out with red marker, the last standing being Akilah Sampson and Janson Mallor. A maid and groundskeeper at Aldridge Mansion respectively.

“Maybe its time we start looking for an alternative,” Dean mused, chair creaking as he shifted his weight. “Look into getting the house cleansed.”

“Something’s missing,” Stiles muttered only half listening to Dean as he stared at the wall, running his gaze over each picture again and again. There were not glaring pieces of missing information, other than the remains of course, but something kept niggling at the back of his mind. Like a puzzle piece missing from the center of an otherwise completed picture.

“Could do what _you_ did at the Glen Capri,” Dean said and Stiles was suddenly paying him a lot more attention, twisting around on the bed and staring at the hunter. He didn’t think he’d imagined the extra stress Dean had laid on the word ‘you.’

“What?” he said blankly trying to formulate an argument that wouldn’t fall apart underneath the faintest scrutiny. “No, I, ah, don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Dean asked and there was a slight hint of challenge underneath the words as he watched Stiles carefully to gauge his reaction.

Stiles swallowed, fighting the urge to turn back to the wall in order to hide his face, an action Dean would obviously and correctly take as Stiles trying to hide something. The cleansing he’d done at the motel had been a risk, a desperate and spur of the moment idea to rid the motel of Alexander’s spirit. It had be stupid, utterly stupid, to do a ritual like that with a hunter around. If Dean had half a brain cell, and Stiles was aware he had plenty more than that, he would have realized that the ritual wasn’t something a random kid who’d only started hunting a few months ago should be able to pull off after just reading about it in a book. Stiles was just lucky Dean seemed willing to look past all the weird discrepancies surrounding the fucked up mess that was his life.

“Because,” Stiles said weakly after a moment surprised when the single word left him feeling a little breathless. “Because…”

“Because,” Dean echoed drawing the word out. “Because of my dad?” he suggested, and Stiles’ stomach clenched, head starting to pound as a faint ringing sounded in his ears. “Because of Trevor?”

“No, because,” Stiles said as Dean frowned at him. “Because.” He pulled in a shallow breath, winding his fingers in the comforter on the bed and blinking rapidly to try and settle his racing thoughts. Vaguely he noted Dean rising from his seat at the table, brow creased in concern as he crossed the room towards Stiles.

“Stiles?” Dean said tone edging towards genuinely worried as he crouched next to the bed. Stiles didn’t know why he’d be worried.

“Because,” Stiles repeated, still trying to finish his sentence even though he wasn’t exactly sure what he was trying to say. He stopped again, dragging in a painful gulp of air that made his lungs spasm and, oh, that was why Dean was staring at him in open concern.

“Stiles?”

“I’m fine,” he gasped. A blatant lie maybe, but also the truth in a way. Knowing he was having a panic attack was half the battle, even if the _reason_ for this one was a little bit of a mystery.

Stiles pulled his knees up to his chest, collapsing against them as he covered his face with his hands and tried to calm down. It wasn’t a full-blown attack, something Stiles was infinitely grateful about. The pounding of his heart was too fast, but still far below the pace that usually made Stiles feel like he was having a heart attack. Tremors were shaking through him as if he was shivering even though his head was pounding and he was overall too hot. And his lungs, while aching painfully, were still working enough that he felt like he could breathe. In fact he was breathing too much, all that extra oxygen flooding his system and making him feel more than a little lightheaded.

“Stiles, we won’t let him hurt you,” Dean said. “We won’t hurt you.”

The reassurances, sincerely as they were meant, startled a hysterical laugh out of Stiles. Something deep and frightened that he immediately buried in the sleeve of his hoodie, biting down hard as he considered, not for the first time, just how much any _one_ of them could hurt him. How much he could hurt _them_. How delicate the balance that existed between all of them was.

“Stiles,” Dean repeated sounding utterly lost.

Stiles ignored him. Just clenched his eyes shut and breathed harshly through his nose as the anxiety rolled over him in waves. He let himself feel overwhelmed, riding it out like a ship in a storm at sea. It couldn’t last forever, and sometimes all he needed to do was outlast it.

Many, many minutes later it finally ebbed, his body exhausting itself beyond the point where it could maintain such a heightened state of arousal. Stiles blinked, eyes feeling scratchy and puffy. Intermittent tremors still rippled through him, and Stiles was acutely aware of Dean’s hand running up and down his back with gentle pressure.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe me,” Stiles started slowly keeping his gaze fixed on his knee, “if I said that wasn’t about you.”

Dean pursed his lips giving a sharp shake of his head, hand stilling between Stiles’ shoulder blades. “Because I’m not an idiot, no. I’d say it’s pretty clear I caused that.”

“Could have been the wall,” Stiles argued and Dean snorted glancing away from Stiles to stare at the information pinned over the bed. Stiles picked at the seam of his pants, fidgeting in the growing silence that seemed to settle over them oppressively.

“Those other hunters really did a number on you didn’t they?” Dean asked after a long moment, voice pitched low and resigned. Stiles swallowed, chest aching as he considered whether or not Dean was really looking for an answer.

“A lot of things did a number on me,” Stiles replied. “That’s life. Or so I’m told.”

“I’m not kidding, you know,” Dean said an unprecedented level of seriousness bleeding into his words and washing over his expression. “If Trevor’s the reason you’re so worked up—”

“He’s not,” Stiles protested. “I mean, I don’t know. He, he just…”

“Gives you a bad feeling,” Dean finished.

Stiles sighed tucking his knees up under his chin, voice going involuntarily small like a child’s. “Yeah. I guess. But it isn’t…it isn’t like that for you and John. I mean, Trevor doesn’t make your skin crawl, right?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Dean admitted. “But that’s just how it is with other hunters. They’re hard to work with. They ping some red flags. They—”

“Try to strangle you in haunted bedrooms?”

Dean huffed. “Not usually,” he said. “My point, Stiles, is that working with other hunters is difficult. We don’t get along well. A lot of us are abrasive, and we often see the worst in people. We’re not, exactly, what you’d call approachable. Well, Sam is but he’s never counted.” Dean waved a hand dismissively as if brushing the thought of his brother away. “I can see how that might make someone like you…uncomfortable.”

Stiles nodded slowly, cheek rubbing gently along the fabric of his pants. “Someone like me?” he echoed.

Dean blinked, dropping his gaze to the bed.

“You mean a victim,” Stiles said swallowing thickly.

“Stiles, everything you’ve gone through...” Dean said after a moment. He trailed off before saying, “It’s not a judgment.”

“Yeah, right,” Stiles replied with a scoffed. “As if all you shark hunters don’t take one look at me and know immediately I’m…damaged.”

“I’ve never looked at you and seen that,” Dean said and Stiles gave another, more derisive scoff.

“Were we in the same room a little while ago? I mean, you saw the latest in the Meltdown Saga of Stiles’ Life, right?” he asked bitterness coloring every word.

Dean turned fully towards him, settling more on the bed and leaning in just close enough that Stiles felt the beginnings of the urge to draw away. “Stiles, I’ve never looked at you and seen that,” he repeated meeting and holding Stiles' gaze. “I've seen victims, and that's not what I see when I look at you. The only thing I see when I look at you is a fighter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience and support. Y'all are the best seriously. Hopefully now that hell week(s) are over I can really get back in the swing of things here and get a couple updates out per month rather than, you know, taking a whole month. 
> 
> Anyway, I am aiming to have another chapter up before **December 25th**. Yes, you read that right. 
> 
> See you soon!
> 
> Oh, FYI, for updates on fic updates when you're waiting for chapters to be posted you can check my [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com). Usually, I try to post when I think/know I'll have a chapter up or you can always send an ask.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, not _quite_ the 25th but still close, yeah? 
> 
> A belated Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and general well wishes to all others! 
> 
> Fair warning, y'all are probably gonna hate John in this chapter. And, unfortunately, he doesn't really...improve much. Or at all really. Poor John. I still tried to do his character justice.

**Where The Demons Hide**

“I’m worried about Stiles,” Dean stated two seconds after said boy left the table to take a leak before they left the diner to start their day. He tracked Stiles’ path across the diner continuing to stare at the closed door for the men’s room several moments after it has swung shut.

John sighed, mopping up the last of his gravy with his final bite of toast and popping it in his mouth. “What makes you say that?” he asked once he swallowed even though he could catalogue about eight different reasons all on his own.

Dean’s scowl and pinched brow told John he knew that as well. “He didn’t sleep last night,” he said shortly, “at all.”

“You sure? He could have slept while you were sleeping. Done it before.”

“No,” Dean said shaking his head. “He didn’t come to bed, I would have noticed. He was sitting at the table when I turned in about two and he was _still_ at the table when I got up a little after five.”

John sighed again, casting a critical gaze over Dean and noting his son didn’t seem to be sleeping entirely well himself. The lethargic haze hovering over him and bruised skin beneath his eyes painted a clear story of poor sleep in the past few days. Whether that was linked to Stiles or independent was unclear, though John was relatively certain Stiles was a key player.

“I know you like to think you’re some savant at keeping track of people even when you’re asleep, kid, but I’ve got twenty years of anecdotal proof that that’s just not true,” John said keeping his tone even and just this side of teasing. “I’ve snuck by you plenty times without disturbing you. Stiles could have easily done so too.”

“He didn’t,” Dean repeated, absolute certainty ringing in his tone. John narrowed his eyes, swiftly getting the sense that he wasn’t receiving all the pertinent information, but Dean moved on without pausing to explain any more. “He says Trevor gives him a bad feeling. Makes him uncomfortable. It’s stressing him out.”

John pursed his lips as he pulled his coffee cup nearer to him, not taking a drink but just swirling the remains of the beverage around the bottom. He wasn’t oblivious to the way Stiles was downright skittish around the other hunter often dancing around the room just to make sure he wasn’t next to Trevor. Wasn’t oblivious to the way Stiles gravitated towards Dean or him whenever Trevor was in the room. The way he fell silent until spoken to directly, and the way he seemed to respond to Trevor with a mixture of apprehensiveness and hostility.

“Stiles has to learn to work with other hunters,” he said finally taking a sip of coffee that had long since gone luke-warm. “Doesn’t have to like it.”

Dean blinked, then squinted slightly in annoyance as he glanced away. It was an expression John was more accustomed to seeing on his youngest, one that rankled his nerves like no other usually, but Dean’s was tempered by a frown of concern rather than thinned lips of anger.

“Maybe he’s right,” Dean said eventually, glancing briefly back at John before training his gaze on the bathroom door and nibbling on his bottom lip. “I mean, he’s got pretty good instincts, don’t he? What if there’s something…off with Trevor?”

“There’s nothing off with Trevor,” John replied making sure his tone brook no argument. Trevor actually came highly recommended. John had called Bobby and a few others the night after meeting Trevor to dig up a little more information than Trevor had deigned to share; he wasn’t about to let just any old hunter around his boy and Stiles after all. He’d spent eighteen years making sure his boys kept clear of the hunters who were little more than glorified serial killers, and wasn’t about to stop now. Trevor’s check came back clean though, never had one speck of trouble and worked fairly well in groups. In fact, according to Jameson in California Trevor preferred to work in groups making his solo hunt here the only questionable part about his person.

“You don’t trust Stiles instincts?” Dean asked and there was something underscoring his words. A challenge perhaps, an unspoken question. John narrowed his eyes in confusion as he tried to work it out, but Dean’s next words spelled it out instead. “I thought you thought he was psychic?”

John huffed taking another deliberate sip of his coffee before remembering that it was cold. “Why would I think that?” he countered after he swallowed.

Dean’s face clouded with confusion, eyebrows knitting together as he said, “Bobby told me that was your top theory.”

“Bobby said what?”

“Dad, you can’t just keep me and Stiles in the dark about this,” Dean continued confusion clearing and replaced with irritation. He seemed oblivious to how every word out of his mouth was compounding John’s perplexity rather than explaining anything, simply getting progressively more aggravated as he spoke. “If he really is psychic, then all three of us need to be aware of that fact. We don’t know what he can do, if anything, although I’d say from what we’ve seen it’s pretty clear that he’s capable of _something_.”

John dropped his gaze to his coffee cup, something about what Dean was saying niggling at a part of his memory that seemed clouded and sluggish. The more John tried to pinpoint it, the more it seemed to slither away. Something about Stiles. Something important.

It was like having something at the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite articulate, a sense of something missing when it shouldn’t be gone in the first place. He pressed harder, digging deeper into the odd sensation and frowning when a wave of dizziness washed over him. The sounds of the diner faded away, Dean’s voice no more than a muted hum in his ears, before it all came rushing back.

It was a strange sensation but one he distinctly remembered feeling before on Bobby’s porch with Stiles below him. The conversation, when he thought back on it, was still muddled and unclear. All of it no more than a hazy recollection of distorted details except Stiles in the yard below him staring up with an expression of muted horror.

“We don’t know how it might affect him,” Dean was saying when John pulled his focus back to the present. “Hell, part of his problem with the nightmares could be related. And, maybe, it’s why those other hunters went after him—”

“Go back to the motel.”

Dean frowned, eyes narrowing and clearly caught off guard by John’s abrupt order. “What?”

“You heard me,” John growled standing from the table and dropping enough cash to cover their bill. “Go back to the motel. Now.”

He didn’t stay to make sure Dean listened sure his oldest wouldn’t disobey a direct order even in whatever mood he was currently. John crossed the diner with sure strides intercepting Stiles who was slowly making his way back to their table with his gaze trained on the floor. He jumped when John grabbed his arm, making a vague sound of protest as John hauled him out the side exit and around the corner by the dumpsters without any explanation.

“John, what are you—”

John shoved him into the wall, knocking the air from his lungs with a startled gasp, before grabbing the collar of his coat and pinning him against the bricks.

“What did you do?” he snarled pressing Stiles harder against he wall and ignoring the fear flickering in the boy’s eyes.

Stiles clamped a hand around his wrist, rising up on his tiptoes to alleviate some of the pressure at his neck. “I…I don’t know what your talking about,” he stammered.

John stepped in closer, using his height and bulk to tower over Stiles in a way he knew made the kid uncomfortable, made Stiles view him as a threat. “Don’t play stupid with me, boy,” he said. Stiles swallowed nervously, breaths going shallow and short. “We both know what you are. Tell me what you did on the porch.”

“Nothing!”

John stepped back hauling Stiles away from the wall a bit before slamming him back and growling, “Don’t lie. What did you do!”

“I didn’t, I didn’t mean to,” Stiles rasped, eyes wide in fear as he tried to press himself closer to the wall blocking his escape, one hand still scrabbling ineffectively at John’s wrist. He was sweating now, fine tremors running through his frame and eyes glassy as he licked repeatedly at his lips. “It was an accident. I swear. I didn’t mean to.”

John loosened his hold, scoffing as he ran one hand wearily over his face, unsure how to even begin handling the situation.

John tightened his grip again, the beginnings of a lecture at the tip of his tongue and free hand raised to emphasize his point, fingers curled loosely into a fist with only his index free. The words crumbled to ash, fleeing him as fast as they had arrived, when Stiles flinched back cringing into the wall with his eyes squeezed shut and head turned away. He didn’t raise his arms to protect himself, didn’t attempt even the simplest of the self-defense moves Dean had been working on with him now for months. Just pressed himself against the wall and waited.

“Jesus,” John breathed letting go of Stiles entirely and taking several steps away.

Immediately Stiles slid down against the wall, curling in on himself and pulling in ragged breaths of air. Pushing his hands through his hair Stiles tugged on the short strands, continuing to breathe in short, staccato puffs of air. He whined sharply, giving his hair a particularly harsh yank, and buried his face in his knees.

His own heart pounding in his chest John walked away crossing the street half in a daze and all but jogging across the lot to get to his motel room. Dean glanced up from his seat on the unused bed as John entered, Trevor mirroring the action from his place at the table.

“Stiles needs you outside,” John said, words coming out more gruffly than he intended as he gave Dean a sharp nod towards the door.

Dean obligingly stood already on his way out when he asked, “What’s he need?”

“Just go,” John snapped. “He’s by the diner.”

Dean threw him one last questioning look but disappeared out the door with a sense of urgency evident only by his quick gait. Trevor frowned, watching the exchange curiously and glancing at John once Dean was gone with a raised eyebrow of expectance.

“Something wrong with the kid?” he asked and John shook his head.

“None of your business.”

Trevor relaxed in his chair slinging one arm over the back. “Come now, Johnny, I’m just concerned.”

“The kid doesn’t like you,” John said bluntly, biting out each word with an abruptness he usually reserved for people of the particularly irritating variety. “Your concern is not warranted nor cared for, and from now on you’ll keep your distance from him. Otherwise, we don’t need you. Is that clear?”

Trevor blinked then shrugged, raising his hands dismissively in surrender. “Crystal.”

* * *

Dean found Stiles by the diner like Dad had said. The moment Dean rounded the corner of Mel’s Diner the cold feeling creeping through him solidified and dropped like lead to his stomach. Stiles was hunched against the wall, one hand pressed against his chest as he struggled to pull in breaths and the other scraping along the bricks. Even from a quick glance Dean could see the faint smears of blood from where the rough edges of the bricks had torn into the pads of Stiles’ fingertips.

“Fuck,” Dean said shaking himself out of the brief stupor he’d fallen into. Immediately Dean stepped forward grabbing Stiles’ wrist and pulling it away from the wall with a muttered apology when Stiles gave a full-bodied flinch. He tried to draw away, rocking back on his heels and yanking weakly against Dean’s grip.

“Stiles,” he said readjusting his hold on the other boy’s wrist to be less restrictive but still secure. “Hey, Stiles, look at me. Look at me.”

Stiles shook his head violently, almost cracking Dean in the chin and yanking harder on his arm. His breathing sped up another notch, rushing in and out of his lungs with a barely there wheeze and underscored with a whine like that of a wounded animal. Stiles flinched again when Dean shifted closer, muscles tensing up taunt as a stretched rubber band ready to snap at any moment.

Frowning Dean shuffled back, releasing Stiles arm as he went and letting out a worried sigh when Stiles curled in on himself with one hand falling to scrape at the pavement rhythmically. Dean’s could feel his own breathing speed up in response to the distress Stiles was exhibiting, his heart pounding equally hard in his chest. The bitter taste of regret stung behind his sternum; the surety that somehow he played a part in whatever had caused this. Stronger still was the low burn of anger at Dad for leaving Stiles behind in an alley after _directly_ causing this regardless of whether or not he had seen fit to send Dean in to clean up his mess afterwards. Because that’s what this was, a higher stakes exercise in mitigating the damage Dad had wrought. Instead of frustrated tears or wounded pride Dean had five feet of unbridled panic with which to contend. Uncharted territory, really, even after all the other panic attacks Dean had seen Stiles through because this one was clearly worse. Even during the attack after Ben in Georgia Stiles hadn’t pulled away from his touch or sought to draw blood as a means of relief.

Dean tried twice more to move closer, Stiles shrinking away both times, before giving up and settling down with several feet of distance between them to wait. Nervously he checked his watch every few minutes keeping a running count of how long it was lasting though he realized at twelve minutes he had no real frame of reference to put it against. It was longer than any of Stiles’ other attacks, but, for all he knew, it could be longer or shorter than average. At minute eighteen he noticed Stiles start to relax a little, the tense line of his shoulders easing and fingers falling still atop the asphalt. At twenty minutes he pulled in a deep breath, holding it for several seconds, before releasing it slowly. And at twenty-two minutes he sighed heavily and turned his head to blink at Dean almost like he was surprised Dean was still there.

“Water,” he whispered and Dean leaned forward to make sure he’d heard correctly. Stiles licked his lips, swallowing roughly. “I need a drink, please.”

Dean nodded jerkily, rolling to his feet. “Yeah, sure. Uh, I’ll be right back.”

He left the alley without looking back, pulling open the door to the diner with hands that felt a little shaky as if he was the one who’d just gone through the mother of all meltdowns. A cursory glance located the waitress from earlier, and he flagged her down wiping his sweaty hands on his pants as she approached.

“Change your mind about something to go?” Claire asked and Dean shook his head.

“Uh, not really. Could I get a glass of water?” He gestured vaguely towards the door as if that would explain the situation. “My friend just had a panic attack and he said some water would help?”

Claire frowned, eyebrows drawing together over sympathetic eyes. “The boy you were in here with earlier?”

“Yeah,” Dean said digging his wallet out of his pocket. “I can pay,” he offered. “I just need some water for him.”

“No, no, don’t be silly,” Claire said waving off his roll of crumpled ones. “I’ll be right back.”

True to her word she returned after only disappearing into the kitchen for a few moments handing Dean a Styrofoam cup of water. “I put some ice in there too,” she said. “The cold should help.”

Dean thanked her quickly moving back outside and unsurprised to find Stiles pretty much exactly as he’d been when Dean left. He handed the cup over watching as Stiles took a few sips before tipping it back to down half the contents in three deep swallows. Breaking off with a cough Stiles leaned forward to rest his head against his forearm doing his very best, it seemed, to ignore Dean’s presence.

“Stiles,” he said licking his lips and steeling himself against the likely reaction to his next words, “I can’t not ask what that was about.”

Unexpectedly Stiles laughed, descending again into a short coughing fit that he attempted to smother with another few gulps of water. Once he’d gained a hold on himself he glanced at Dean as if judging whether or not an answer was truly desired. When Dean held his gaze he laughed again, a weak and pitiful chuckle that sounded more pained than anything.

“It was about me being a goddamn idiot,” he said, words rough and bitter. “About me thinking this could end any other way. It was about you and your dad and Trevor and that fucking demon and about me ever thinking I could actually do this.”

Swallowing down the sour taste of dread and disappointment Dean leaned forward and forced himself to ask, “What did he do?”

Stiles didn’t bother pretending like he didn’t know who Dean meant. “Nothing I didn’t deserve,” he whispered eyes screwed shut and forehead pressed to his arm once again.

This was a breaking point, Dean thought. Once passed, there may be no going back. He could accept Stiles’ answer and play along as they all pretended nothing happened like he had so many times in the past. Or he could stand up and push back, break rank and cross the line. Dean let out a carefully measured breath, shaking his head even though Stiles wouldn’t see it.

“Stiles, what did he do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I hope to have the next chapter up by **January 1st**. You can [follow](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com) me for updates on fic updates.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While still dealing with fallout from the demon hunt in Georgia, a complex ghost hunt at a haunted mansion in Boston and a new hunter who seems vaguely familiar stirs already volatile circumstances between Stiles and the Winchesters into something that will have a lasting impact.

**Where The Demons Hide**

Stiles didn’t know exactly how the conversation between Dean and John had gone, but he could infer quite a bit from their equally pissed off moods. Neither was happy with the other and both of them seemed to be avoiding him like the plague. Or maybe he was the one doing the avoiding. Regardless the end result was the same. Somehow Stiles had found himself alone in the library of Aldridge mansion with Trevor who, despite the continued aura of threat, was actually the preferred company at the moment.

That probably said something poignant about the state of his life, but Stiles was honestly too tired and strung out to care.

He flipped to the next page in the dusty account of the house’s history stifling down the urge to sneeze as he squinted at the barely legible words scrawled across the pages. It was getting increasingly difficult to read with each successive page and he hoped Dean and John were having more luck in the upstairs study.

“You know, this would probably go faster if you helped read instead of just staring at me,” Stiles groused sending Trevor a less than pleased look.

Trevor just shrugged, shotgun cradled in the crook of his elbow. “Can’t keep watch if I’m trying to decipher decade old scribbles, now can I?” he said. “And I’m supposed to keep you _safe_.”

Stiles blinked at the likely imagined stress on the word safe, eventually deciding ignore the flash of unease it elicited. He sighed, rubbing hard at his eyes for a moment before turning to the next page. If he never had to read about this goddamn family and their servants again it would be too soon.

Thundering footsteps on the stairs broke his concentration again before he even regained it, hopefully signaling his salvation and nothing sinister. From the pleased expression on Dean’s face he figured the former was true.

“Please, god, tell me you figured it out,” he said a little relieved when Dean flashed him an easy grin like he hadn’t spent the better part of the day all but ignoring Stiles. John remained stoic, standing off to the side and not even sparing Stiles a glance.

“We did,” Dean said holding up a tattered, leather-bound book as proof. “It’s Beatrice.”

“Beatrice,” Stiles repeated. He recognized her name, but she wasn’t on his wall. “The _daughter_?”

The only daughter who'd, according to public record, moved back to England to be married off before dying at a depressingly young age from consumption. Stiles had considered her for all of three seconds when going through names then set her aside as so far off the radar she didn't even matter. Even her grave hadn't been listed as stateside, but a single plot in a small church cemetery. 

“Yep, apparently daddy dearest locked her up in the basement after she killed the others,” Dean said sounding particularly disgusted by what he’d read, like he couldn't imagine a person doing such a thing to another human being let alone their child even if said child had made a few questionable decisions, “and when she died they just buried her down there. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people are crazy.”

“But…records say she moved to England,” Stiles said.

Dean flipped the book closed and turned it around so the cover faced Stiles. “And this is the old man’s personal journal. Which do you think is more accurate?”

“Okay, so now what?” Stiles asked even though he was pretty certain he knew.

Dean’s answering grin was worth it. “We do a little digging and burn us some bones.”

* * *

Having four people to dig up a corpse proved pretty useful. Two people to stand watch while the others did the digging meant Beatrice’s one and only attempt to stop them was nipped squarely in the bud. Before long they had her skeleton exposed and doused in the requisite mix of salt and lighter fluid.

Dean struck the final match, offering a heartfelt, “Sayonara, bitch,” before dropping it in the shallow grave and watching her go up in flame. They all stood quietly for a couple minutes, Stiles wondering why the cloying sense of dread crawling through him seemed to only be getting worse as she burned, before John apparently decided they’d waited long enough.

Gathering up their tools he handed one bag to Trevor and the other to Stiles with gruff instructions to load up the car. Given that it was the first thing John had said to him since that morning and it didn't include threats or yelling Stiles wasn’t inclined to argue. He shouldered the bag wearily and trailed up the stairs after Trevor.

There was a shift in the air as soon as Trevor left the basement, a breath of cold wind on the back of Stiles neck and a sense of impending threat that left him reeling. He saw her a second before Trevor did; a regal woman dressed in white with her dark hair tied up away from her face, a twist of curls cascading over one shoulder. Her face was twisted in a snarl of rage seeming directed solely at the other hunter.

“Trevor!”

Stiles dropped the bag as he propelled himself up the steps towards an already closing door. Dean shouted from behind him but Stiles didn’t hear the words, pressing himself through the shrinking gap just as the door slammed shut.

Trevor grabbed him when he stumbled out on the other side, pulling him down behind an overturned table. Stiles winced at the sound of breaking glass glancing towards the basement door and the frustrated yelling he could hear behind it. The wood rattled and creaked, John and Dean obviously trying to get through and prevented by something. Probably Beatrice. Stiles peeked over the edge of the table trying to pinpoint where she was; Trevor did the same, hands flexing around the rock salt shotgun he still held.

“I don’t understand!” Trevor shouted once he'd ducked down again. “We torched her bones. Why is she still trying to kill us?”

Stiles ducked back behind the table as a cabinet careened toward them, catching the edge of the table and crumbling to pieces as it impacted the stone fireplace. He ran for the closest doorway sliding into the parlor with Trevor on his heels as he considered the question. Trevor was right in a sense; it didn’t make sense. Then again, if the rule said burning the bones laid a spirit to rest and the bones were burned yet the spirit remained _that_ meant they must have missed something.

“We must of missed something,” Stiles said.

“We can’t have,” Trevor snapped as they took cover behind a piano. An earsplitting discordant sound echoed through the room as something impacted the instrument. It probably wasn’t a good thing to hide behind but the parlor didn’t offer a lot of options. “We lit up the whole grave. No way we missed something.”

“Unless it wasn’t _in_ the grave,” Stiles pointed out, and Trevor shot him a sharp glance.

“What do you mean it wasn’t in the grave?”

There were a few possibilities Stiles could think of, namely keepsakes from childhood. Baby teeth maybe, or perhaps a lock of hair. “The dolls,” Stiles murmured grabbing Trevor’s arm to get his attention. “Trevor, the dolls. Do you remember the dolls?”

“The creepy ass dolls upstairs?” Trevor asked with a frown. “Why?”

Stiles grinned. “It’s hair,” he explained rolling his eyes when Trevor frowned in confusion. “The dolls. In the nineteen hundreds they used to make dolls using the child’s real hair. That’s the same room the EMF went off in, and I think there’s one that looks like Beatrice.”

Trevor let out a squawk of surprise as Stiles seized a handful of his coat and dragged him towards the stairs. They clamored up to the second floor, Stiles taking the steps two at a time and just barely ducking to avoid the chair that came sailing his way when he crested the top.

He kept his hand on Trevor’s coat, fingers clenched in the stiff material as he led them down the hallway to the playroom at the end. Trevor pulled free as they entered, Stiles letting go to scan the dolls from a distance while Trevor started sorting through the ones on the lowest shelf knocking several to the floor with barely audible crunches of porcelain.

“Which one?” he demanded. “They all look the same.”

“In the corner,” Stiles said pointing to a doll tucked away on the highest shelf. She was slightly separated from the others, a couple inches of space between her and the next while the others were practically piled on top of each other. She had blue eyes and dark hair twisted back into an intricate bun atop her head with curls spilling over her left shoulder. “Top shelf. See her?”

Even Trevor had to jump to reach her, missing her by a hair’s breadth on his first two tries and snagging the hem of her dress on the third. She toppled off the shelf, and Stiles’ heart jumped as he barely caught her before she hit the floor. The idea of setting her aflame turned his stomach and he hesitated, even as Trevor frantically searched his own pockets for a lighter, to pull out the one he knew rested in the pocket of his hoodie. She was a beautiful doll, face delicately crafted to bear a striking resemblance to Beatrice and deep blue eyes that somehow conveyed endless sorrow.

“Stiles,” Trevor snapped, shaking him from his thoughts, “do you have a damn lighter?”

Stiles blinked automatically slipping his hand in his pocket. His fingers had just closed around the cool metal when Trevor was lifted from the floor and thrown bodily across the room into the armoire. The wood cracked beneath the impact, and Trevor crumpled to the floor with a groan. Stiles moved forward, quick steps carrying him across the room, only to stumble to a halt when Beatrice flickered into being before him. He scrambled back, fingers clenching around the doll and digging into the smooth silk of her dress, determined to keep his hold on it even if Beatrice decided to give him the same treatment she’d given Trevor.

Beatrice only stared silent at him, eyes as blue and sorrowed as her doll’s, before raising one pale finger to her lips as if she were shushing him. She held it there for a long moment, Stiles squinting in confusion while Trevor moaned behind her, before turning away. Utterly disregarding Stiles and the fact that he held her doll, she flickered towards Trevor, disappearing and reappearing several times before kneeling beside the hunter.

Trevor gasped, reaching half-heartedly for his shotgun that had fallen only a few inches beyond his grip before Beatrice placed a hand on his chest. Trevor went ridged, features twisted in a silent scream as his back arched and his skin paled. Shaken from whatever hesitation had overcome him, Stiles jammed his hand in his pocket drawing out his lighter and flipping it open. Positioning the doll’s hair over where the flame would soon be he thumbed the sparkwheel frantically, cursing when it seemed the lighter was intent on remaining unlit. Giving it a particularly hard flick and a spark of his own, the lighter finally caught. Flame licked the doll’s curls catching almost immediately and filling the room with the stomach turning stench of burnt hair.

Burying his nose in his elbow and breathing only through his mouth Stiles held the doll away from him as the flames did their job. Beatrice flickered, Trevor collapsing to the floor with a relieved inhale as the ghost let out a mournful cry and crumpled inward like ash blown away on the wind. Stiles let the doll burn a little longer waiting until the hair was entirely gone before carefully patting out any remaining embers. Bald and smudged with ash she looked even more pitiful. Stiles was relieved to set her aside and go help Trevor.

“You okay?” he asked grabbing the hunter’s forearm and helping haul him to his feet.

Trevor swayed for a moment but seemed to regain his bearings well enough. “Yeah,” he said giving Stiles’ arm a hard squeeze. He paused, fingers tight around Stiles’ wrist and gaze calculating. “I think so. Thanks for that.”

“No problem,” Stiles said pulling his arm from Trevor’s grip and taking a step away. “We, uh, should head back downstairs. Dean and John are probably out of the basement now.”

“Yeah,” Trevor said again, still regarding Stiles with an unsettling intensity. Stiles took another step back to put a little more distance between them abruptly aware of the fact that Trevor was between him and the door and holding the only real weapon in the room. “Yeah, we should do that.”

Stiles let out a small sigh of relief when Trevor turned and started heading for the door. He held back for a moment, letting the other man get a bit of a head start and cocking his head to the side as he noticed a flash of silver beneath the armoire. Kneeling Stiles fished Trevor’s lighter out from where it had fallen a teasing barb about keeping a better hold on one’s belongings on the tip of his tongue. It went unspoken though, the small amount of relief running through him turning to ice in his veins and something like dread settling in him as he ran his thumb over the familiar etching on the side of the lighter that he just couldn’t quite place: a snake consuming its own tail around a square with an x over it crossing through the center of each side.

The sound of the door clicking shut and the latch engaging echoed with a sort of finality through the room.

“I actually kind of like you, Stiles,” Trevor said jamming the lock in the door and pushing one of the toy chests in front of it. From the effort it seemed to take and the screeching as it slid across the floor Stiles could tell it was fairly heavy making it an effective barricade. The thought made the cold pit in his stomach solidify even further.

Stiles rose warily to his feet glancing around the room for another way out and finding none. The door to his right led only to an adjoining bathroom with no other access and the windows to his back were three stories in the air over nothing but concrete.

“That makes it harder, you know,” Trevor continued sounding almost apologetic as he pulled a handgun from a holster beneath his coat, making a show of checking the magazine and thumbing off the safety.

Stiles swallowed drifting forward a few steps and slipping Trevor’s lighter into his pocket. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “I mean, we can, uh, chalk this all up to post hunt craziness, right? You put away your gun, I help you move that stupid toy box, and we go our separate ways. No harm, no foul, okay?” he said. Even before he finished Trevor was shaking his head.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he said gesturing vaguely with his gun and letting out a disappointed huff. Stiles halted, working his gaze over Trevor’s features for the umpteenth time and still coming up blank no matter how far back he tried to go in his memory. “I suppose I shouldn’t fault you,” Trevor said a note of understanding coloring his words. “After all it took me a while to place you, and you did take quite a few knocks to your head that night.”

“Look, man,” Stiles said once again taking careful steps towards the other hunter even though every part of him was screaming at him to get away. The closer he was to the firearm, the safer he’d be; across a room Trevor held all the cards but if Stiles could get close enough he’d stand a decent chance of disarming the hunter without being shot. “I don’t know you. I don’t know where you think you know me from but you’re mistaken, okay? The first time I met you was when you tried to strangle me.”

Trevor sighed again staring contemplatively down at the gun in his hands. “That’s really hurtful, Stiles, but maybe this will jog your memory,” he said taking five quite strides to bring himself right in front of Stiles and level his handgun at Stiles’ head. The cool metal against his skin sent shivers down his spine, stomach rolling uncomfortably and ears roaring as the room faded around him for a few moments before snapping back with stark clarity.

“The last time I did this you cried,” Trevor said, voice dropping into something low and dangerous. Something barely above a whisper that stuck a chord buried deep in Stiles’ mind. “Do you remember that?”

Stiles closed his eyes, wishing suddenly and desperately for Dean or John to come bursting through the door. He didn’t remember Trevor’s face, couldn't have described his appearance at all, but he remembered that voice. Deep and rough, filled with scorn. The sound of his whisper slotted everything together and abruptly the icy dread that pooled in Stiles’ stomach whenever Trevor was around made complete sense.

_There’s two ways this ends, boy. You tell us where to find the alpha and you’re free to go or you don’t tell us and I paint this floor with your brain. Which is it gonna be?_

“Ah, you do remember,” Trevor said nudging the gun just a little harder against Stiles’ head. Stiles could hear the smile in his words, the glee that twisted his stomach. He turned his head, seeking relief from the cold metal, but Trevor just shifted closer. “You got off lucky that night, you know? Ain’t no reason for me to let you go this time.”

Stiles jerked his gaze back up to the man’s face, glaring at the hunter even as his stomach rolled and his hands shook. “Sure there is,” he said. “I don’t think John or Dean would look kindly on you killing their hunting partner.”

“It’s endearing, really, that you think John will give a flying fuck if I kill you especially since he doesn’t seem all that fond of you to begin with, and we both know Dean will just do whatever daddy dearest tells him to.” Trevor said advancing on Stiles slowly and pushing him back until he collided with the table in the corner set for tea. A couple of the cups tumbled over when Stiles hit the edge, one rolling off and shattering against the floor. “I doubt either one will be all that concerned after I tell them what you really are.”

“And what’s that?” Stiles asked somehow managing to keep his tone flat and even despite the panic rolling through him. “A werewolf sympathizer?”

“No, no, you’re much more interesting now, aren’t you?” Trevor said. “A little bird was talking about your pack a while back. Shared a lot about you and yours before I chopped her head off. Have you heard the names they’re calling you?”

“I’ve heard a few,” Stiles retorted shortly.

“Little Red, she called you. You’ve got quite a bit of blood on your hands now,” Trevor continued digging the barrel of his gun into Stiles’ forehead and speaking forcefully. “Tell me something, you murdering little bastard, did you keep a tally of all the people you slaughtered or did you just go wild?”

Stiles swallowed, heart thundering violently in his chest and palms slick with sweat. The gun was a cold bite against his skin and Trevor seemed to tower over him, crowding closer until Stiles was pressing himself against the table hard enough to make the edge dig into his hip. On one hand it was a relief to know Trevor just thought he was some murdering psycho, but on the other it seemed that either way this was going to end with a bullet in his brain.

“If Gerard had known what you were gonna do, he’d have put you down on the spot,” Trevor said and Stiles could feel what little blood had been left drain from his face. “And if little Chris had even an ounce of integrity like his sister had then he woulda done the same.”

From somewhere below them echoing up from the ground floor Stiles heard Dean call his name. Trevor heard it too, his focus drifting from Stiles for a split second as he glanced toward the door. That split second was all the time Stiles needed. He shifted his weight to his left foot and kicked out with his right as he brought his hands up to grab the gun and twist Trevor’s wrist. Trevor reacted as expected pulling the trigger as he tried to draw away. Stiles’ ears rang from the report of the gun, but he moved forward on instinct and muscle memory, driving his foot deep into Trevor’s gut and twisting the man’s wrist further to loosen his hold on the gun.

Disarming a man intent on killing him was different than disarming Dean. Trevor recovered quicker than Stiles expected, losing his grip on the gun but knocking it from Stiles’ as well. It clattered to the floor, and Stiles kicked out unthinkingly to send it skittering across the room wanting it as far from them as possible. Trevor seized the collar of his coat pulling him off balance and driving a knee into his stomach. Stiles coughed, air rushing from his lungs and already dazed even before Trevor threw him into the shelves.

Dolls tumbled to the floor around him while he desperately tried to pull in a breath as Trevor landed several punches in a row to his ribs. Grabbing one of the dolls Stiles ducked out of the way of Trevor’s next punch and swung the doll around to catch him across the cheek. Porcelain shattered, fine cuts scraping over Trevor’s skin as he hissed in pain. Stiles darted forward to land a straight cross on Trevor’s nose feeling it crunch a bit beneath his fist and following it up with a quick jab to the hunter’s throat.

Trevor coughed, throwing a wild punch Stiles easily dodged before regaining his bearings. Stiles danced back to put some distance between them, pressing one hand against his aching ribs and stumbling over a doll as its head crumbled beneath his weight. Trevor surged forward, fist swinging around in a brutal right hook that caught Stiles in his ear.

The room swam around him, floorboards and shattered doll faces the only thing he could see for a long moment until the ringing faded and the room stabilized. For a fleeting second he couldn’t find Trevor, panic and relief warring before he realized Trevor was picking up the gun. Shoving himself to his feet Stiles lunged forward, colliding with Trevor’s side and trying desperately to keep the gun pointed at anything other than him. Trevor pulled the trigger twice; one bullet harmlessly impacting the ceiling and the other shot somewhere among their feet. They tumbled to the floor, Stiles’ elbow smarting painfully and air knocked from his lungs when Trevor landed on top of him. Stiles wrapped his hand around the barrel of the gun shoving it towards Trevor viciously, pleased when he heard the distinctive pop and Trevor cry out in pain.

Stiles’ sweaty fingers slipped on the gun slightly before he managed to get a solid grip and pull the trigger. Trevor jerked and the report of the gunshots rang piercingly throughout the room. Stiles grabbed the hunter’s coat, ignoring the slick feeling of warm blood on his skin as he hauled the man closer and pulled the trigger again.

And again.

And again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...
> 
> Next update probably **January 8th**. As always, my [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com).
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I'd like to go on record saying I had Stiles killing Trevor even before I knew he'd killed Donovan in canon. Poor boy was bound to get blood on his hands at some point.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While still dealing with fallout from the demon hunt in Georgia, a complex ghost hunt at a haunted mansion in Boston and a new hunter who seems vaguely familiar stirs already volatile circumstances between Stiles and the Winchesters into something that will have a lasting impact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! And...the longest one this part I think.

**Where The Demons Hide**

Shaking with rage wasn’t a phrase with which Dean was intimately familiar. Sam was always the one who shook and vibrated with his anger, like there was too much in him to be controlled. Dean got mad, but it was always contained. He’d spent so long tamping down and burying anything that resembled rage that he generally hovered around the moderately irritated. The few times he actually got _angry_ it burned fast and it burned steady. He didn’t do flying off the handle arguments or screaming fits; he was focused and he was calculated.

Sam had described it as cold. Always said he could tell when Dean was really angry because he went still and quiet. Sam also said Dad would never notice because still and quiet didn’t demand attention.

He didn’t feel still and quiet now. Not with Stiles shut away in the bathroom washing dirt and blood from shaking hands while he pretended everything was okay. As if he somehow deserved being half scared to death by Dean’s father in an alley and then _left_ like yesterday’s trash. And Dad had left him there. Pushed him to the point a goddamn panic attack and walked away.

Right now he thought he had a pretty good idea of how Sam often felt. Like boiling rage was just beneath his skin, aching for relief and escape.

The water switched off, but the door stayed closed. Dean drifted over on silent feet, treading lightly and pausing just outside the door. He didn’t want to intrude, felt Stiles probably needed the space right now to gather himself. So he waited quietly, tendrils of anger still thrumming through him, one hand resting on the doorjamb.

At first he wasn’t sure what he was hearing. It was quiet. Muffled. And the motel walls were actually pretty decent at keeping noise to a minimum. But it was unmistakably the sound of Stiles crying, and Dean’s chest twisted at the mental image of Stiles tucked between the toilet and the vanity or the tub. He grasped the knob, a second away from opening it before he drew back.

Leaving Stiles for the moment Dean exited the room easing the door shut behind him as he went one door over. Dad and Trevor looked up as he entered, Dad glancing away again almost immediately while Trevor merely raised an expectant eyebrow.

“You boy’s ready?” he asked, and Dean shook his head.

“Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?” He ignored the faint expression of surprise and interest on Trevor’s face adding sharply, “Alone.”

Taking the hint Trevor gathered up his things, quickly reassembling the handgun he had before him and tucking it in his shoulder holster. “I’ll leave you two to it then. Meet you outside?”

Dad gave a sharp nod of assent remaining quiet until Trevor pulled the door closed behind him and the silence stretched between them. “How’s Stiles?” he grunted finally rising from his own seat to start consolidating stacks of research into one pile.

Dean crossed the room, coming to a halt in front of Dad and slamming his hand down on top of the papers. “You left him there. You scared the shit out of him and left him there. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You mind your tone with me, boy,” Dad warned.

“You know his history with other hunters,” Dean said ignoring the note of caution in his father’s tone and pushing further than he dared in awhile, “and you took advantage of that to what? Punish him for not answering your goddamn questions the way you want him to? Has it even occurred to you that he’s not answering because he’s fucking afraid of you?”

Dad huffed drawing himself up and settling his features into a steel mask. “I’m going to let that slide,” he said, words clipped and brimming with anger. “Go back to your room. Be ready to go in five.”

“You’re going to let that _slide_?” Dean said rounding the table to confront Dad directly.

“Dean.”

That one word was usually enough to drive him back into line. Enough to cow him into submission. Sam had always hated how Dean would back down too _easily._ Always said Dean needed to learn how to stick up for himself or Dad would steamroll entirely over him until there was nothing left. Dean had always ignored him because maintaining the peace had always taken precedent over anything he wanted; that was something he learned early on.

“I can’t believe you would push him like that,” he growled.

“I had my reasons,” Dad retorted voice rising. "And I don't have to explain them to you." 

Dean scoffed more than familiar with Dad's Need To Know policy. “That you won’t tell me. Or Stiles apparently!”

“You need to think very carefully about how you want to proceed here, boy,” Dad said tone lowering into something dangerous.

“Because you never share your reasoning ever!” Dean continued without heeding Dad’s warning. “You keep digging and digging at Stiles and his past without any regard to how much damage you’re doing or even considering how much easier it would be on all of us if you would just—”

“You’re letting your feelings cloud your judgment.”

“And you’re charging through everything like a Terminator,” Dean snapped just barely refraining from reaching out to shove his father. He curled his hands into fists by his side instead.

“You think I don’t notice how attached you are?” Dad hissed. “He’s not a _pet_ , Dean, you don’t get to keep him.”

Dean flinched as if hit, the words stinging more than he wanted to acknowledge. He was infinitely grateful Stiles wasn’t present to witness the argument or the near shameful flush he could feel coloring his neck. Dad stared at him, sharp gaze gathering any and all details, reading Dean like an open book. Dean had never hated his father’s ability to do so quite as much as he did in that moment.

“He’s not here to be your friend,” Dad said driving the figurative knife even deeper, “and eventually he will leave. It’s not worth you getting invested.”

Dean clenched his jaw, a thousand different things he didn’t want to say clawing their way up his throat. He turned away before he could voice any of them, slamming the door behind him and pointedly refusing to look towards Trevor as he made his way back to Stiles’ and his room.

Stiles was still in the bathroom and Dean sank down on the edge of the mattress to wait having absolutely no intention of bothering the other boy just to meet his father’s arbitrary five minute time limit. The door finally opened a little while later to reveal a pale and drawn Stiles who’d clearly spent the last few minutes attempting to conceal any evidence of his breakdown. It was obvious if one looked close enough, but a part of Dean was disturbed by how normal Stiles appeared. It struck him as a bit hypocritical since he was doing his best to plaster on a normal expression despite the swirling mess of emotions roiling inside.

Tugging the cuffs of his sweatshirt down over his hands Stiles offered Dean a wan smile that was a little too shaky to be genuine. Dean tried to muster up one in return but couldn't quite get it past the heavy feeling settled in his chest. Stiles’ smile faded completely, and he bowed his head picking at a small tear in his left cuff.

“So…” he said roughly, pausing to clear his throat. “You talked to your dad?”

It wasn’t a question even if it was worded like one and belatedly Dean realized the bathroom Stiles had been in was between the two rooms. He probably heard everything.

“Yeah,” he answered mouth oddly dry.

Stiles nodded, still not meeting his gaze as he picked at his cuff. “What’d…what’d he say?”

Dean sighed pushing himself up from the bed. “Nothing really,” he said snagging Stiles’ coat from the chair without being asked and holding it out to him. “We’re heading back to the house.”

“Of course we are,” Stiles said pulling the coat on and looking a little more comfortable with the added layer. “Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

They end up splitting into teams at the mansion. For some reason, Stiles opted to go with Trevor even when Dean made a vague comment suggesting otherwise. Stiles just shrugged like it doesn’t matter gaze still trained on the floor, and Trevor seemed pleased though he cowered a bit under a stern glare from Dad. Dean’s stomach twisted uncomfortably, but he didn’t argue. Stiles looked antsy at the idea of being in the same room as either of them, and Dad’s words from earlier just kept ringing in Dean’s ears every time he glanced Dean’s way.

Still, leaving Stiles and Trevor alone downstairs to go through the main library while Dean and Dad took the study upstairs fostered a nebulous sense of danger, but he figured Stiles was just rubbing off on him a bit. For once he focused easily, skimming through page after page and book after book with the promise that as soon as they solved this puzzle they could leave Trevor behind and move on. On to what was unclear, but Dean would take it and deal. Maybe he could convince Dad to drop Stiles and him off at Bobby’s again for a little bit. Given how Dean had invariably pissed the old man off earlier it shouldn’t be too hard a sell.

Dad didn’t say one word the entire time to him, barely even looked his way. Normally Dean would find that fact wholly disconcerting, but at the moment he didn’t rightly care much at all. Simmering anger was still brewing low inside him, a steadily burning fire of bitterness he hadn’t felt since the days directly following Sam’s departure to Palo Alto.

Eventually Dean found the answer in the old man’s journal. The relief on Stiles’ face when they thundered down the stairs to share the news eased something in his chest. Made him think that, maybe, they’d move on from this hunt and this town and they’d be okay. That Stiles would stay, at least for a while, and Dean wouldn’t fuck everything up somehow.

He worked his way through cement and packed dirt with renewed vigor and set Beatrice aflame with a profound sense of accomplishment. Dad apparently shared the sentiment, repacking the bags and ordering Trevor and Stiles off as soon as the flames started to die down. Dean crouched to make sure the bones were good and charred before beginning to kick dirt over them while tracking Stiles’ movement from the corner of his eye.

Now that the job was done he felt a little more settled, less uneasy and just anxious to get back on the road. He shifted his weight as Stiles disappeared behind the wood supports of the stairwell accepting the shovel Dad handed him to start scraping dirt and concrete back into the hole sending up a halfhearted mental apology for burying poor Beatrice back right where her dick of a father left her. Whether or not the organization that owned this dump actually found her or not would be left up to chance but a freshly dug hole in the basement would likely raise some questions when they finally took a look inside the house again.

Stiles shouting Trevor’s name set both Dean and John on high alert followed by unearthly clattering as Stiles dropped his bag.

“Stiles!” Dean shouted tossing his shovel aside and snatching up his sawed-off as he darted towards the stairs just in time to see the younger boy lunge up the steps and slip through the rapidly closing door. Dean hauled himself up the stairs two or three at a time one hand clasped to the railing and the other on his shotgun.

He slammed into the door hard enough his shoulder ached from the impact, but it didn’t budge even when Dean yanked on the handled.

“Stiles!” His pulse skyrocketed at the shouts and commotion sounding from behind the wood. Dean banged on the door trying the knob again and kicking at it in frustration when it continued to stick. Something impacted the wall nearby, glass shattering and followed by the sound of wood groaning as it screeched across the floor.

“Dad, the door’s stuck,” he said glancing over his shoulder as his father came up behind him motioning for him to step aside. Dean eased back letting Dad forward to try and pry the door open. It resisted the effort, not so much as budging no matter how much Dad strained. An awful discordant sound echoed from outside. Dad and Dean actually froze for a moment, glancing at each other in shock both wondering what the hell that was before Dad resumed his attempt to pry open the door.

Dean moved back another step letting Dad work on the door while he tried to follow the movements of Stiles and Trevor. They weren’t just outside anymore; their footsteps and the sound of careening household objects had faded into one of the farther room. As Dean listened now he was pretty sure Stiles and Trevor were retreating upstairs, the faint but audible thud of footsteps sounding against the steps.

It went quiet outside for several minutes as Dad kept working on the door, the silence beyond the door almost oppressive and stretching on long enough Dean started to feel like a taunt rubber band. Another few minuets went by and suddenly the door fell open, Dad stumbling forward at the abrupt lack of support.

Dean gaped for half a second then surged forward brushing past Dad to move through the house, heart still hammering in his chest as he gave each room a quick glance and followed the trail of damage. The half smashed piano gave him a pause for half a second, the awful sound from earlier now making sense. Dean turned towards the stairs noting the broken chair at the top of the landing.

The sharp crack of a gunshot startled him, and he cut a worried glance to his father as ice slipped down his spine. “That wasn’t a shotgun,” he said concern mounting as Dad’s brows knit together as well.

Dean surged up the stairs calling Stiles’ name, railing creaking under his hand as he took the steps two at a time. Dad thundered behind him as Dean tracked the building sounds of fighting as they reached the second floor. It took him a moment to figure out what hallway to go down. For a long sickening second Dean didn’t know where to go, the crack of the gunshot still echoing in his ears and the distinct thuds of fighting sounding through the halls.

He turned to the left, moving swiftly towards the only closed door with mounting urgency that sent tendrils of nervous energy thrumming through him. An uneasy certainty that something terrible was about to happen turned his stomach and made his skin feel unbearably tight.

They were halfway down the hall when the gun fired again.

* * *

The gun clicked empty on the fifth pull, the room enveloped in a ringing silence. Stiles gasped, shoving the now still and heavy Trevor away and blinking rapidly. The world was too bright, everything thrown into stark relief and bathed in red. His right hand remained clenched around the gun as he listened to John and Dean pounding on the other side of the door, the toy box screeching as it slid bit by bit across the wooden floor.

“Stiles!” Dean shouted squeezing through the gap as soon as it was wide enough. His yells were jarring, reverberating oddly in Stiles’ head and overly loud. John followed behind him, pushing the toy box out of the way and scanning the room with a careful gaze before settling on Trevor.

Stiles pushed himself shakily to his feet. He dodged Dean’s hands when the other man reached for him, simply pressing the handgun into Dean’s chest and finally unclenching his fingers from around its grip. His wrist was beginning to throb now, a dull ache spreading up his arm and down through his fingers. An almost painful tingling shooting up from his fingertips. He walked away without a word, ears ringing and barely able to catch the muttered expletives from the two hunters behind him, focused only on one goal—get outside.

Dean was calling his name again, hurried footsteps almost in time with his heartbeats, but Stiles didn’t slow down. Couldn’t. If he stopped walking he’d stop moving. And if he stopped moving he’d have to process what he’d just done. The shadows would catch up and the ringing in his ears would never stop.

The fresh air outside felt good in his lungs as he sucked in a deep breath; he hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing before. Now the air scraped raggedly over his throat to his lungs, expanding painfully in his chest as the world spun around him.

“Stiles.” Dean was there suddenly again, concerned face in front of Stiles’ and hands on Stiles’ shoulders. They moved to his face, large palms against his cheeks seeping in warmth and forcing Stiles to look at Dean. “Stiles, just focus on me, okay? Are you hurt?”

Stiles shook his head, kept on his feet only by his grip on Dean’s arms when the world whirled once more at the motion, unsure if it was a refusal to Dean’s first statement or an answer to his second question. Dean’s hands left his face then, carefully running down Stiles’ chest, pressing and prodding inquisitively, dragging over the blood soaked hoodie and t-shirt.

It wasn’t his blood. He was fine.

It wasn’t his blood. It was a dead man’s blood.

He was covered in a dead man’s blood. Trevor’s blood.

Dean swore and caught him around his waist as he fell. Spent one second trying to haul him back up before Stiles was collapsing again to the ground and vomiting. His stomach clenched as it rolled and the bile stung on its way up. Harsh breaths made it impossible to take in any air and for one wild moment Stiles thought he might actually be suffocating. Somehow.

Dean was still talking. Still touching him. Making his skin crawl like thousands of ants marching over him, each point of contact searing like fire. Still crouched beside him, one hand on Stiles’ arm and another running over his back like this was something that could be comforted away through simple touch.

But it couldn’t. Because Stiles had just killed a man.

There were pounding footsteps impacting on the cement. Heavy steps. John. His voice was low and gruff, cutting through the continuous ringing in Stiles’ ears.

“Back off, Dean. Give him some room.”

Dean’s hands fell away and Stiles clenched his eyes shut at the loss of any sort of anchor. He dug his fingers into the concrete beneath him, ignoring the bite of the rough edges as his stomach lurched again. Tried to rein his body back under his control. Focus on his breaths. Focus on the world around him. It was like trying to hold water in his hands.

“Easy, boy, easy. Just let it out,” John said, voice a low rumble washing over Stiles. A heavy hand landed at the base of his neck, not moving, just exerting gentle pressure. Stiles blinked, staring at the pavement below him and pressing down with the tips of his fingers to try and ground himself.

“Sorry,” he gasped spitting to try and rid his mouth of the foul taste of vomit. “I’m sorry. I didn’t…sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” John said evenly. “It’s a normal reaction to your first kill.”

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut taking a careful breath in the hopes that he wouldn’t throw up again. He didn't like that word. Didn’t like it in the sentence with the word your. Didn’t like that John was being so undisturbed in mentioning it. Stiles didn’t want to have a normal reaction. He didn’t want to have a normal reaction to _this_ ; he wasn’t _normal._ He wasn’t supposed to react _normally_.

“Breathe, Stiles, breathe,” John ordered then softened his tone a little. “It’s okay. I threw up the first time I shot someone too.”

Laughing probably didn’t go a long way in convincing them of his sanity, but Stiles couldn’t really help it. His hands were shaking, he just shot a man, and he was laughing. Maybe if he kept laughing he wouldn’t have another panic attack.

Right. And maybe, tomorrow, he’d be made queen of England.

* * *

“I never wanted to be a killer,” Stiles whispered clenching his hand in the bed sheet to keep himself grounded. The room still felt like it was tipping ever so slightly. Like the deck of a boat on calm water. Just enough to knock him off kilter.

Dean tossed the towel to the chair crossing the room in three strides and dropping down before Stiles. “Hey,” he said nudging Stiles’ chin with his hand and shaking his head, “you’re not a killer.”

Stiles blinked at him slowly. “There’s a human back there in that house that I shot four times. Your dad is cleaning up a crime scene. By any letter of the law I murdered that man,” he said. The familiar feeling of impending panic was sweeping over him again—tremors in his hands, rush of lightheadedness, flash of heat, the tightening of his throat.

“Hey, hey, Stiles, you need to breathe, okay? Remember air? It’s good for you. So take some deep breaths,” Dean coached dragging Stiles’ hand to press to his chest and drawing in exaggerated breaths for Stiles to follow. Stiles let out a sharp exhale before working to draw in a deep breath in tandem with Dean. He could feel the steady beat of Dean’s heart beneath his palm. “That’s it. Good. Just keep breathing. Don't think so hard. Just listen. What you did, you had to, okay? He was trying to kill you…” Dean trailed off shaking his head again. “He _would_ have killed you, Stiles. That’s self-defense in my book.”

Stiles bit back his next words. Damning words. Was it still self-defense when the hunted killed the hunter? Even when the hunted _deserved_ to be hunted? Stiles knew what he was, and Trevor had been right, he was dangerous. Maybe he did need put down.

“I thought I knew what it was like,” Stiles said instead. He didn’t necessarily want to tell Dean this. Any of this. But the words were swirling like poison around his mind, blackening everything they touched and something had to come out. Something had to give, and better this secret than the others.

“What what was like?” Dean asked pressing one of his hands over Stiles’ hand on his chest and wrapping the other loosely about Stiles’ wrist. His thumb pressed lightly over Stiles’ rapid pulse.

“Killing someone,” Stiles breathed. “I was…with the demon, I was awake. I was there. I felt the blood on my hands. Heard their screams. I watched the life drain out of them. And I liked it,” he said letting the confusion and uncertainty he usually worked hard to hide layer into his words. Dean pulled back a bit and Stiles let him go dropping his hand from Dean’s chest. He knew the disgust that was coiling inside of Dean at his words as intimately as the disgust that coiled inside of himself. “I liked the power and the control and the rush it gave me. I thought that’s what I felt when I killed someone.”

“Stiles, that wasn’t you,” Dean said softly shifting forward again to cover Stiles’ shaking hands with his own. “That was the demon. Everything you felt and did, it wasn’t you.”

Stiles pulled his hands away, not wanting to be touched anymore and drew his legs up onto the bed. Dean let him go, only furrowing his brow slightly. “You should rest,” he said after a long moment.

“Do you know the four stages of possession?” Stiles asked.

Dean furrowed his brow deeper, confused no doubt at the seemingly random question. Stiles took his silence as a no.

“It starts with manifestation,” Stiles said softly letting the words fill only the space between him and Dean as if keeping the words quiet would lessen their truth. “That’s when a person invites the demon in through some sort of ritual or playing with a Ouija board or tarot cards or just weak will, whatever. Demons most often target the weak-minded, someone with a chink in their armor.”

Stiles paused looking down and avoiding Dean’s gaze.

“The next step is infestation. That’s when the demon first makes itself known and weird things start to happen. Dreams, random sounds, sometimes voices, waking nightmares, riddles, the works. Then oppression, that’s where the demon starts really leaning on the person, influencing them psychologically and emotionally. It wears you down, torments you, pushes you to the point of breaking and beyond. Hallucinations, mind games, it turns the world inside and out. You don't know what’s real and what’s not.”

Stiles paused, licking his lips and taking a careful, measured breath. “And when you finally break,” he said, “that’s the possession. The demon controls your thoughts, your emotions, your behavior. Everything you do and are _is_ the demon. There’s no it and you anymore, there’s no line where it stops and you begin. Everything is the demon. Even you.”

* * *

In eighth grade Stiles spent three weeks obsessively reading everything he could about serial killers and famous murderers throughout the world. He spent hours jumping through links on the Internet and checked out enough books from the library that the librarian started giving him worried glances whenever he stopped in. Stiles had even cajoled his father into buying a couple books the library hadn’t carried and filled them with countless post-it notes. He still had them tucked away on one of his bookshelves.

He wrote a twelve-page essay on John Wayne Gacy who’d been convicted of thirty-three murders and executed only a month after Stiles had been born for his English final. That paper had gotten him five visits to the school guidance counselor and garnered a phone call to his father, which had resulted in an awkward twenty-three minute meeting with the guidance counselor and principle where Dad tried to convince them Stiles wasn’t an absolute lunatic.

Exactly zero of the books and articles and random blog posts he’d read about serial killers and murderers talked about how absolutely shitty killing could make a person feel. Maybe because serial killers didn’t feel guilt or didn’t feel it the right way. Maybe because they were fundamentally broken to begin with or because no one who’d personally written about their murders wanted to admit how it made them feel like less than human. Maybe they’d killed so much they didn’t even notice anymore.

Whatever the reason nothing mentioned the clawing pit of agony that sat low in his chest and just _tore_ without reprieve.

He’d killed to survive, yes, but there was still that niggling doubt about his decision. The certainty that there should have been another way.

And maybe, deeper, hidden and sour, there was relief.

And maybe that was the real reason for the choked feeling that still clung to him.

Gravel crunched behind him and Stiles ducked his head glancing over surreptitiously just long enough to confirm who it was before training his gaze back on the rising sun just beginning to peek over the horizon. John came to a halt beside him pausing a moment before apparently opting to just lean against the edge of the rickety picnic table rather than sit on it like Stiles. Probably a smart decision given that Stiles was pretty sure the dew-soaked wood would be leaving him with damp pants. There wasn’t one part of him with enough energy to actually care about that though, and he was thankful just for the distance it afforded him when John elected to remain standing at the far end.

John stayed silent for several long minutes and Stiles let him almost getting lost in the rising sun again before the older man finally spoke. “We need to talk, Stiles.”

There were a lot of responses Stiles could have to that but he didn’t voice any of them. Too tired perhaps. Or too indifferent. The only thing he could really focus on was the steady beat of his heart in his chest, almost painful against his ribs.

“How did your mother die?”

Stiles blinked, dragging his gaze away from the horizon to the hunter. “ _What_?” he rasped. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“How’d your mother die?” John repeated meeting Stiles gaze steadily.

“From a degenerative brain disease,” Stiles spit out. “Not that it fucking matters.”

“What disease?”

Stiles gaped, the words settling his chest like hot coals. “Frontotemporal dementia. I ask again, _why_?”

John hummed. “Seems a bit young for something like that.”

“She was,” Stiles said shortly forcing his gaze back to the trees and trying ignore the hunter to his right.

There was a long moment of silence before John spoke again. “When did your abilities start?”

Stiles slowly looked back to him. “My what?”

“Your abilities.”

Stiles glanced away trying to tamp down on the reflexive panic tightening his throat. He swallowed roughly twice. “After,” he said. “They started after.”

“After your mother’s death or after your possession?”

“What’s my mother have to do with anything?” Stiles asked, confusion bleeding through every word. “She died when I was nine before any of…before anything ever happened.”

John sighed, rolling his shoulders like he was preparing himself. “There are others like you,” he said glancing once at Stiles before training his gaze on the horizon. “Others with abilities from encounters with demons. Abilities of preternatural nature.”

Stiles licked his lips, brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to follow John’s line of thinking. He thought the hunter might be talking about other psychics, notoriously unaligned in the supernatural realm and found just as often on the side of hunters as not, or other druids as it wasn’t unheard of to hear about a druid with a friendly, working connection in the hunter community. But neither sounded quite right and neither matched the grave tone of John’s words or the meaning hinted at beneath.

“We can help you, Stiles,” John said turning to face him fully, a gruff trace of warning coloring his words. “But you use them against me or my son all bets are off and you won’t like my response. Understood?”

Stiles swallowed and nodded slowly. “Yeah, John, I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. 
> 
> Thank you all so, so much. I appreciate and adore all the reads and kudos and comments. Even if I don't reply it for sure brightened my day because you're all freakin' awesome. ^_^
> 
> On to news that y'all probably won't like, because of the way my schedule works out for the spring semester between classes, field, and work and because most of Part 10 is still in the skeleton stages I am going to take a brief, uh, hiatus from this series. While I will continue working on it I won't be posting Part 10 until **May 1st** just to make sure all parts of my life get the focus they deserve. 
> 
> In the meantime, however, I will be working on posting a series of smaller projects and if you want please feel free to send me short prompts on my [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com) to keep me motivated through the dark days full of research papers and case studies that await me. 
> 
> Cheers and see y'all soon!


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